Is it kill or cure for Oracle's database buy?

Oracle President Charles Phillips was calling to voice the company's "good intentions" in the purchase of the five-person outfit based in Helsinki.

But even with his reassurances, Mickos, like many others, is speculating about the tech giant's motives in buying a company that furnishes a key component in MySQL's database, an ever-more-popular rival to Oracle's software. Is Oracle seeking to disarm a potential competitor, or does it want to make open-source products a strategic part of its business?